No Pain No Gain OR the College Girl and the Older Man

She’s 22. He admits to 39.  He’s into Dire Straits. Huey Lewis and the News. Remembers John Cougar Mellencamp (fondly). She likes Pink. He does, too. Especially on her; it suits her. Dick mentions Meatloaf but she’s not into cooking. A brief pause, just short of stunned silence, reveals a gap, of the generational kind, making a grand entrance (once again). Still, Dick is determined to see this through. She’s young and nubile. Pneumatic. Not his intellectual equal but he’s going to let that slide. No pain, no gain, Dick’s looking at her, so young, so nubile, banging on about twilight. Apparently she really enjoyed it. Ah, finally, something he can latch onto. 'I prefer sunrise,' Dick says, with a serious air. She doesn’t even register what just happened. Nods, smiles, plays with her hair extensions. The main (steak for him, chicken for her) arrives. He pours wine, she tweets: Madison is having dinner with a friend. Puts the phone down, within comfortable reach.

The evening ends. Somewhat prematurely for Dick, way too late for Madison who has to get up early (for uni). Thanx 4 dinna it woz luvly, she texts him as her taxi pulls out from the curb. Dick waves. Once again, he’s disappointed. This was a third dinner he sprung for. He was hoping to get his leg over. Doesn’t quite understand what went wrong. He’s got hair, flosses regularly, works out. He thought she’d be up for it, so young, so nubile. So in need of a free lunch, Dick muses, in the car, on the way home.

Back home he sips cognac on the balcony (overlooking the city). Contemplates the situation, the one he has going with Madison. The ‘expensive dinners and no sex’ situation. Maybe it’s time to cut his losses. Look elsewhere. Dick decides to check his mail – he’d joined a dating site recently (just in case). A reply from a lady awaits. Her name is Beverly. She’s a single mother with four children. Admits to 39. She thinks they might have a lot in common. She too likes the theatre. Course, he he he (writes Beverly) she doesn’t get out as much as she’d like, what with four active youngsters and all … Dick hits the delete.

The morning finds Dick at the gym. Crunches, pushups, dumbbells, barbells, bench press. He's working out the steak, the baked potato, the tiramisu. It's killing him, but hey, no pain, no gain. Dick has his mind firmly set. On Madison. He's taking her out tonight if it kills him.

The Fleeting Nature of True Friendship OR Enough is Enough

Picture this. You have a friend. Known her all your life. But lately, she’s been having some personal issues. Rough divorce. Drinking problem. Weight gain. Loneliness. Life hasn’t been a bed of roses. So. Finally some good news. She’s met someone. At first, you’re relieved. About time, you say. And then the big reveal: he’s doing a twelve-year stretch in maximum security. He’s an inmate. Your head’s spinning. You didn’t think her self-esteem was this bad. And now you have this situation. How do you handle it? What do you say? You’re going out with him? You’re hoping to wake her up, so you ask.

“Yes, I’m going out with him,” she responds, seemingly oblivious to the point you’re trying to make. But she knows.

 “Oh? Takes you nice places, does he?” you intone (sarcastically) to draw attention to her foolish behavior.

She takes the pretense to a new level. Looks at you with pity in her eyes. “He’s in jail, stupid.”

“And you’re going out with him,” you repeat, just to drive the point home. Just to make sure you’re on the same wavelength (in this conversation). Privately, of course, you know you’re on a different planet. You’d never date an inmate. No matter how bad things got.

“Yes, I am,” she repeats. With more vigor this time. “It’s not what you think, you know. Don’t judge!”

You realize she really means it. You realize it’s much worse than you thought. But you don’t give up, not yet. You want her to see the light.

“Don’t tell me,” you say, keeping up the sarcasm. “He didn’t do it.”

She goes into overdrive. No, he didn’t! He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wasn’t even in the bank! He was just outside, waiting in the car. He didn’t know they were gonna rob the place! They didn’t tell him. See? It was just bad luck. It could have happened to anyone.

You’ve no words to add to this. You sit there shaking your head. She goes on, a hundred miles an hour. She’s been through so much, I should be happy for her. This could be a new start. For both of them. She’s giving this a go. It’s a long term relationship. (Long distance, too, you pipe up.) She doesn’t hear you. Ploughs on. They’ll be getting married when he gets out. In 2018. She’ll only be 53. He 37.  It’s going to work.

I Was Young Once

 Now, here’s an opener for you: I was young once. Not brilliant, I know, just slightly above It was a dark and stormy night (which, funnily enough, it was). So, on this very dark and very stormy night I sat at a bus stop, waiting – you guessed it – for a bus. It didn’t come. I fell into a kind of a sleep. Or maybe a stupor – which really is a kind of a sleep. Anyway, I was experiencing it, the way you do when you’re young, bored and alone. At some point, fog appeared. The night became eerie-er. I sat there, waiting it out. Eventually, someone else appeared (out of the fog that had appeared). It was a young he, penetrating my stupor with a most unusual request.

"Have you the time?" he asked, tossing his mane of wildly blond hair over his shoulder in a very gay manner.

In my stupor, the gesture went by me, unregistered.

"I'do," I perked up (taking in the wildly blond hair and the good physique).  "What do you fancy?"

He looked at me puzzled. "I fancy knowing the time, " he drily replied (without a toss or a gesture). "What is it?"

I told him truthfully I didn’t have a watch. The conversation stalled there, what with him being gay and me watchless in a stupor. So why am I telling you this? Cause I was young once.

Here’s another one. I went to a friend’s staff party one gay Christmas Eve (still being young and watchless) and met a young man there who gave me the eye. Literally.  Sat down next to me and plonked it down onto my side plate, next to my bread roll. A prosthetic eyeball, next to my bread. It stared at me in a very resigned manner; I had a feeling it was tired. Why am I telling you this? Cause I was young once. Cause stories like these are all that’s keeping the legend alive. 

The Waiting Room and the Supermarket Trolley

I met this bloke at the doctor’s. He was old, much older than me. Normally, I would have avoided a conversation (I like to catch up on celebrity gossip in these situations) but the waiting room was full. And all of us intent on catching up with celebrity lives. So. I’m sitting there next to this pensioner. He’s having a conversation with the person sitting next to him. On the other side. The pensioner is a wee bit deaf. He talks loud. He has all sorts of health issues, all consuming problems he’d like to get this person’s opinion on. Dry feet. Bunions. Other unsightly foot growths. See? He wiggles his toes. He’s wearing thongs so we have a good view. The foot looks like a root of a very, very old and subtropical tree. It’s gnarly. There’s all sorts of biological matter sprouting from it. Oozing too. I’m fascinated. The person sitting on the other side of the old man is too. We’re leaning forward to get a better look. Then suddenly, the person opposite the person sitting next to the old man is called. It’s her turn to see the doctor. She puts down the magazine (house paint and garden furniture with some recipes thrown in), goes. I spring to action, the person on the other side of the old man springs as well. Ah, but I’m just that bit farther away. I don’t get there in time. I would so have liked to know how to distress furniture. My kitchen table could do with a makeover. 

So, it’s just me and the old bloke. He wants to compare hemorrhoids. I picture it in my mind. How would one do that in polite society? I find myself wondering. I’m actually giving this some thought; I’m pondering the mechanics of it. — Eventually I steel my mind in another direction. Well, I’m trying to but the pensioner won’t let me. He’s moved onto legal matters. He’s engaged in a bit of a to and fro with the local supermarket. It’s the trolleys, you see, the man lowers his voice into what he imagines is a conspiratorial whisper. He’s blowing into my ear. It feels as if we’ve entered a time warp; I’m imagining I’m under a bridge with a tornado passing overhead. It gets weirder. He has trouble putting the coins in. The trolleys. He can’t see the slots, his hands shake too much. He gets frustrated, his blood pressure rises. So he’s been writing letters, putting them in the boxes. Cause customer feedback is important to them (the supermarket people, not the boxes). He’s awaiting their answer. Presently.

Presently it's my turn. The doctor will see me NOW. Good bye, I say to my companion. Good luck with the ... 

The door closes behind me.

The Cautionary Tale of a Young Doodler

Dear Ned,

I’m such a fan of yours that I feel compelled to write you about me problem. I find meself in a peculiar situation, which troubles me greatly and from which I see no escape. This peculiar situation has cost me me job and me privacy, and brought me unwanted attention from worldwide media. Although I am now considerably richer than before, I pine relentlessly for me former life in which I was a lowly-paid administrative assistant civil servant of the 14^th grade (an entry level slash typing pool type of situation), whom nobody knew or indeed wanted to. But now I find meself hounded by the media who pursue me from dawn to dusk, recording the most mundane events of me daily life (the other day I found a YouTube video of me taking the garbage out! – 227, 357 hits in three hours) and go to great lengths to secure personal items, such as me toenail clippings, to hawk on eBay. Only someone like you, dear Ned, who has undoubtedly suffered similar indignities, can understand the anguish I am going through. I sincerely hope you will be able to help.

     All this palaver started when I’d inadvertently entered an arts competition.  You see, I used to have an insignificant administrative post at a famous cultural institute in me city – I won’t tell you where it is but if I told you the name of this institution you would recognize it immediately – and up until recently was quite happy there, performing me duties diligently and with the sort of enthusiasm one can expect from an eighteen-year-old high school dropout. The tasks I was charged with were very simple, reflecting me age and the entry level position I was in.  All I had to do was register people for various courses and events the institute has to offer. There never was much interest as we live in a coastal town where the beaches are close and the weather is good, and where most people like to drink beer and barbecue on the weekends, so really, I mostly had bugger all to do. I napped a lot or else watched YouTube surfing videos. On the odd occasion where there was an inquiry, I dealt with it as I’d been conditioned to do – I sent them to a link on our website or else I promised to send them info in the mail, a promise I hardly ever fulfilled as I was usually too busy doodling when I was talking to people on the phone so I’d forget to take down their address. As nobody ever complained (attending arty ‘dos’ are the sort of flights of fancy most folks do not take seriously so it’d be easy to forget you’d requested a pamphlet about them), I spent me days aimlessly doodling.  Thinking nothing, doing nothing, it was a bloody good way to spend the working day. Or so I thought. Little did I know that it would be these aimless doodles that would prove to be the bane of me existence in the end!

     Wouldn’t you know it, dear Ned, but I got quite good with the doodling – nothing fancy, mainly stick figures and smiley faces in pencil or pen or, on the odd occasion when I couldn’t find one in me drawer, a highlighter or a stray crayon I found in the auditorium, depicting simple themes reflecting me interests – stick figures on surf boards, in the waves, making beer bottle pyramids on the beach, making out with stick figure girls – you name it, I drew it. Then one day I had a particularly long phone conversation with a keen supporter of the arts who was a wee bit deaf, so I managed to cover an entire A3 sheet I had on me desk lying in front of me. I can’t tell you what I had intended to draw originally but by the time I finished the call, the paper was covered with doodles from top to bottom, side to side. Me doodles that day tended more to the abstract, reflecting the strong feelings I had experienced during that fateful conversation. I did throw in a couple of solid pieces, such as a clenched fist, and one with the middle finger raised, a bleeding heart with a knife sticking out of it, and a few doodles of a coarser nature featuring  bits of human male anatomy locked in other bits of human male anatomy. Looking at the sheet, I found the entire repertoire of human emotions reflected there – from impatience to anger, to rage, to murderous intent – a crescendo of feelings I never would have thought possible to find hidden inside me but there you have it, Ned, it was there, right in front of me stapler, for me to behold. As this was closing time and I had a hot date, I foolishly left the paper there and went home. And that’s where I went wrong.

     In the morning, I fronted up for work as per usual, ready for a nap after a big night, only to find the gallery director, the curator and the head of the department assembled around me desk, pondering me doodles with a serious air. Cut a long story short, they entered me in the competition under Contemporary, and I won!  I did! I won a shitload of money and a new job – I am now the Artist in Residence in the under 30 category. Me days now are considerably busier since I’ve taken up me new post – no amount of pleading with the brass spared me this, even though I owned up I never had any training or indeed interest in the fine arts, the doodling being the result of a boring desk job with little outside stimulation, the brass decided I take up the job if only to avert a scandal which could see the entire panel of judges sacked – and so here I am teaching art to young emerging artists, visiting school assemblies, feigning interest in opening art galleries and other such nonsense, on a daily basis. It’s driving me bonkers, dear Ned. All I want is to get me old job back and keep the prize money. After all, I earned it.

Yours respectfully,

P. Casso, Artist-in-Residence

Ned’s reply:

Dear P. Casso,

I’ve seen your doodles on YouTube. It’s shit so it’s only inevitable you have a great future in the contemporary arts. Bow to your destiny, my friend, and stop complaining. Milk it for all you can; cushy art jobs are hard to come by.

Respectfully, Ned

 A Decent Ransom is now available  in 270 libraries worldwide...

A Decent Ransom is now available to read in 268 libraries worldwide. And the good news doesn't end there ...